WPA Slave Narratives - Missouri
The history of the connections between slavery and William Jewell College is inseparable from the history of slavery in Missouri. Among the most useful sources for understanding the experiences of enslaved people in Missouri are the interviews carried out by the Federal Writers’ Project in the late 1930s with formerly enslaved people. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Missouri State Museum provides a wide selection of powerful excerpts from the slave narratives as well as valuable historical analysis.
Interviews can found on the Library of Congress website.
The Missouri Compromise -
Anti-slavery speeches
Although Missouri ultimately entered the Union as a slave state, it is important to recognize that the controversy over safeguarding slavery in Missouri was not uncontested: both within Missouri and on a national level, significant anti-slavery sentiments were an important feature of the debate. Claims that ‘every (white) person in Missouri supported slavery, so we can’t blame Jewell’s founders, because that’s just the way things were’ do not withstand scrutiny. Follow this link for an anti-slavery speech by Senator Rufus King, and this link for a brief piece, written by historian Nick Sacco, highlighting anti-slavery voices in Missouri during the statehood debate.
William Wells Brown - Abolitionist & first African American novelist
William Wells Brown was the most famous African American abolitionist to have lived in Missouri, and also holds the distinction as the first African American novelist for his authorship of Clotel, or the President’s Daughter.
Slave auctions in St. Louis
[From the National Parks Service] - Slave Sales
“There were constant reminders of the horrors of slavery in antebellum St. Louis. One of the worst involved the open sales of slaves at various places along the city's busiest streets, which was an accepted community practice. Regular slave auctions and sales were held in several places, most notably at the slave market run by Bernard M. Lynch on Locust Street between Fourth and Fifth. This market was moved in 1859 to Broadway and Clark Streets. Lynch's "slave pens" were former private residences with bars placed on all the windows to secure them like prisons. Slaves were herded off steamboats and up the street to the slave houses, then sold to persons, especially after 1840, from outside St. Louis, mostly from the western counties in Missouri or further down the river. Families were broken up, with children taken from mothers, fathers sold down the river, husbands and wives separated. And all of this was done in full view of crowds wishing to buy and passersby going about their daily business.”
Pro-Slavery Ideology
In 1855, at a meeting of a ‘Pro-Slavery Convention’ in Lexington, James Shannon, a pro-slavery preacher and academic, and second president of the University of Missouri (1850-1856), provided one of the most vociferous statements of pro-slavery ideology ever authored in Missouri.
Slave shackles & liberation
[From the Kansas Historical Society] -
“This shackle is a very rare object and illustrates the efforts of both African Americans and whites in opposing slavery. In 1860 Robert McFarland was asked by a neighbor to help rescue an abused slave at Lexington, Missouri. As a blacksmith, McFarland had the necessary tools to cut the shackle from the slave's leg. Many years later, when donating the shackle to the Society, McFarland wrote a letter describing the incident:
"As near as I can recollect it was in the fall of 1860 at Lexington, Mo., that a Virginian came to me stating that James Hicklin--a rich farmer living 4 miles east of Lex. & who (while an honest dealing man was very hard on his slaves) was treating an old slave in a barbarous manner…Late in the night they came and I found an old Negro man--partly grey haired--apparently 60 years of age--around whose leg (I think the left one) was riveted [sic] a heavy shackle to which was attached what seemed like a trace chain. On the other end of the chain--about 5 ft from the shackle--was a heavy iron ball weighing about 20 lbs which the Negro (when going to or from his work) was obliged to carry by placing the chain over his shoulder with the ball hanging behind. His shin & ancle [sic] was very sore from the constant rubbing of the iron (although somewhat protected by rags wound around the parts). The appearance of the leg & ancle with the offensive smell emitted from the sores so aroused our sympathies that [we] wished we could change the irons from the slave to the master."
African American soldiers in Missouri
[From the Missouri State Archives]
“Missouri's African American Troops
“There were seven African American regiments enrolled in Missouri…The first black regiment from Missouri was recruited in June 1863 at Schofield Barracks in St. Louis. More than 300 men enlisted. The regiment was called the First Regiment of Missouri Colored Infantry. It later became the 62nd U.S. Regiment of Colored Infantry. Over 3,700 Missouri African Americans enrolled in the army in 1864…Some slave owners were upset at losing slaves, which they regarded as property. Other citizens worried that the slaves who did not serve in the army would rebel and cause trouble. Some groups of Confederate bushwhackers tried to frighten African Americans away from recruiting stations. None of this stopped black Missourians from serving as soldiers, though. It is estimated that nearly 8,400 African American soldiers enrolled in Missouri regiments. Even more African American Missourians enrolled in out-of-state units.”
Spotswood Rice - U.S.C.T. soldiers fighting to free themselves and their families
Spotswood Rice, a formerly enslaved man who enlisted in the U.S.C.T. in early 1864, wrote an exceptionally powerful letter to Kittey Diggs, a woman who held Rice’s daughter, Mary, in slavery. Rice warned Digges that he and other Union soldiers would soon come to liberate Rice’s family: “I received a leteter from Cariline telling me that you say I tried to steal to plunder my child away from you now I want you to understand that mary is my Child and she is a God given rite of my own and you may hold on to hear as long as you can but I want you to remembor this one thing that the longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to burn in hell and the qwicer youll get their..” For more information on Rice, see this article by historian Deborah Keating.